JUST ENGAGE

For years the Jewish community has been calling for a number of measures to relieve the suffering of those in Darfur.  First, it was a peacekeeping mission, and then divestment, then peace treaties, and multi-lateral negotiations.  None of these appear to have made one bit of difference on the ground.  We all had a glimpse of hope once the hybrid UN-AU force was approved to be deployed in 2008 which briefly abated my fears that Darfur would soon amount to nothing but deserted land that hosted a people that once was.   However, my fears have been renewed as I read that the under-funded and under-supported force will now be ineffective for another six months! 

Helicopters are the issue now.  The force doesn’t have any.  I hear 24 will do the job.  Usually you can find at least a dozen hovering over any major American city during rush hour, but in the entire world there are not two dozen for this mission that could save hundreds of thousands of lives. 

Perhaps it was my naivety that when I heard almost every major world leader, including President Bush, get up before the UN General Assembly and declare the genocide in Darfur as the worst human rights violation of our time, I actually thought they would commit to doing something about it. Boy, am I embarrassed.  

To be fair, I understand the international community has a lot on its plate including climate change, terrorism, Britney Spears, etc, but for an issue that has finally made the front pages and been the center of attention in international politics for years now, I guess I need someone to tell that the Jewish community’s efforts to make this an issue were not in vein….(tap tap) Is this thing on? 

This photo essay in the New York Times is a different view of Auschwitz .  It raises some uncomfortable questions.

This slide show illustrates how effective the German propaganda machine was, allowing people to lose their conscience and be business as usual all the while participating in acts of extreme depravity.

The very fact that these pictures portray what seem to be normal everyday people is what makes it so scary. They don't look like monsters. They smile, are cleanly dressed, have kids, have dogs. We could pass them on the street and not shudder or be afraid.

Evil can come in a very nice package, with black hearts wrapped in ribbons and bows. We, and the entire world, need to learn to see beyond the packaging. 

For them it was a job that they probably didn't think that much about when they went home. How much does an exterminator obsess over his job when he's home in the evening? For the Nazis, a Jewish life wasn't worth more - or even as much - as that of a roach. That's why you could have "people" playing with their dogs in a charming garden while a few feet away, others were being starved and tortured to death.

What's so scary is how normal they look. How can anyone know who is evil if Evil can wear such a human face?   

When we hear over and over about Darfur, Rwanda , and other places where human atrocities are taking place even today, these places quickly become background noise for some obscure distant form of evil. These albums, taken within steps of the camps, remind us that these acts are committed, even today, by fellow human beings against other fellow human beings.

*Thanks to my friends at JWN for this material

(Editors Note: recently Shoshana Bryen, special projects director for the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, wrote a Machers Blog item chastising Jewish groups involved in the fight to end the genocide in Darfur for their unwillingness to consider military solutions to the problem. 

Here is a response from Rabbi Steve Gutow, executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs – and the board chair of the Save Darfur Coalition.)

Goodness, Shoshana's simple answer seems so easy. Why not walk in with troops and teach those animals in Khartoum once and for all that we mean business and that their genocide must stop? The United States could do that. Our power is great. Thursday, I took a taxi to Reagan in DC and listened to a cab driver from Sierra Leone attack a "bullying" United States in a way so venomous that I had to shout back just to maintain my conscience.

I hate the policies of the Khartoum regime, hate them enough to fill up my days as co-chair of the interfaith, intergroup Save Darfur Coalition---no rest for the weary, particularly when Sudan’s devastation of Darfur is the main genocide in town. I have toyed with, challenged the State Department with, and tried to ingest the idea of unilateral war as the answer. It is not.